Heathrow is flying high after reporting busiest first half ever

Heathrow has reported that the first half of 2018 has been the airport’s busiest first half ever.

During this period, retail sales and continued passenger growth pushed revenues up 2.3% to £1.405bn and increased Adjusted EBITDA by 1.6% to £848m.

Heathrow has also continued to invest in improving the passenger experience, with operating costs increasing slightly after investments to boost resilience, security and service.

Passenger satisfaction scores pushed up demand to fly from the UK’s hub to an all-time high of 38.1 million passengers (+2.5%), with growth across all markets. Four new connections to China in 2018 helped trade through Heathrow grow 2.2% to 841,449 tonnes of cargo.

In the first half of 2018, Heathrow also raised nearly £1bn to reinvest in the airport, demonstrating Heathrow’s attractiveness to global investors.

In addition, last month a Parliament vote propelled Heathrow’s expansion project forward. Heathrow is now reviewing over 100 ideas from UK businesses and entrepreneurs to help deliver the project.

This follows on from the airport finalising visits to 65 UK sites bidding to help build the project through large-scale offsite manufacturing.

John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive Officer of Heathrow, said: “2018 will be a year for the record books – England’s footballers have made the nation proud, we’ve had the best summer sunshine in years and Parliament voted overwhelmingly to expand Heathrow.

“We’re proud to be the front door of a nation flying high, and we’ll continue delivering a great passenger service and the global trading links that will keep the UK thriving for decades to come.”